Not what it sounds like.

Spontaneous Acts of Fandom

Did you hear? Portal is free. If you don’t know what Portal is, or have never played it, go do that now. Go on, I’ll wait.

…

All done? Good. You can start posting “the cake is a lie” all over the internet in a bit, but first I wanted to share something with you.

Those of you cool enough to read Rock Paper Shotgun will have already seen their announcement that Portal is free (did you hear? Portal is free). For the rest of you, have a look at this gem from the comments thread. I’ll shut up for now, because there is nothing I could possibly say to make this more awesome:

Let me answer your questions in advance: Yes, that is twenty one different people, no duplicates. Yes, I will write a more substantial post later. Yes, Portal really is free. And yes, that last guy really does have Stupendous Man as his avatar.

So is this, like, a gimmick to get Portal 2 sold? Offer Portal for free, legally, so even people too moral to pirate it but too poor to buy it can get hooked on it, then when they’ve unlocked all achievements and are begging for more, introduce the holy grail that is Portal 2?